


Myth and History

by omphale23



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 23:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does it matter why you're on the journey?  Love gained, love lost, to find a fortune or lose a curse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Myth and History

_"A myth was an event which, in some sense, had happened once, but which also happened all the time. Because of our strictly chronological view of history, we have no word for such an occurrence, but mythology is an art form that points beyond history to what is timeless in human existence, helping us to get beyond the chaotic flux of random events, and glimpse the core of reality."_

Karen Armstrong

***

All stories begin the same way—a journey begins. Or a stranger arrives.

But you don't know which you are. Maybe you're both. Maybe it's just the same story, over and over again. When you leave home, you're always a stranger somewhere. Sometimes you're a stranger at home. Sometimes you're just strange.

Sometimes the stranger arrives, in a place that you don't belong and are ready to leave, and he takes you away with him.

Does it matter why you're on the journey? Love gained, love lost, to find a fortune or lose a curse?

Is it enough not to know the way? To take the first step anyhow?

***

Look, I don't know how it started. I never do. I only know how it ends. It ends with me, standing here, talking to you. Wondering how it began.

This is the way history works, butterfly wings in a far-off land. You can't ever trace the path back to the beginning. You can barely make out what universe it started in.

Anybody who says differently is lying. Or selling something. Possibly both. Probably both.

They shouldn't be trusted, at any rate. Never trust the gods. They don't have your best interests at heart. They're looking for entertainment, not justice.

Never put your faith in a man without a name. Lesson two.

***

So where did I start this time? An average town. An average planet. Where everyone comes from, eventually. You'd think with all the people who live here but came from there, wouldn't be anyone left in those far away worlds, but you'd be wrong. There's not much to do, and it's cold some of the year, so we breed like rabbits. No matter how many people you meet from anywhere, there are always more still left at home.

Sometimes there are exceptions to this.

That doesn't really tell you anything about my people. I mean, just like here, there are all kinds where I come from. Who's to say whether I'm from the good ones or the bad ones? No way to know, is there? You'll just have to take my word for it.

Funny thing, that.

It's something that matters back home—-your word. Out here, worlds don't hinge on whether we live up to our social promises. If I fail to show up for a party, chances are no one will still be talking about it twenty years from now.

If they are, I'll be gone. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'm permanent. Either way, it won't matter.

That's not the way the world works in the place I left. My grandmother once failed to bring a casserole to a potluck, and the biddies in the corner were still talking about her at a wedding fifty years on. Never saw so much trouble over a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

You can imagine, therefore, the ruckus when I left the reception with the best man and the bride's mother. Is it any wonder that I didn't go home any more than absolutely necessary?

That I can't always remember where home is?

See, you thought that if I came from good people, it would mean that I was a good person. Trustworthy, always crosses with the light, calls home on Sundays and probably pets stray kittens. Not so much.

I'm the black sheep. Gram used to say that "bad is knowing what's right, and not doing it." She always got a funny glint in her eye, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't coming down on the side of right.

Some stories claimed that she won the family farm in a poker game. Other stories say she cheated a man out of it, and ran off with his wife.

People say I take after her, and I choose to take that as a compliment. She gave me her recipes, after all. Sealed envelope, room full of family, deathbed act.

Three days later, I traded them for a ticket to somewhere else.

***

A death, and a beginning. When the ties that hold you to place, to home, to this, are gone, nothing remains but Out There. And Out There is waiting for you to make a decision, to grow up, to be brave. To hope for more.

***

My people are not, by and large, a hopeful lot. We have a resignation that can appear to outsiders as unnerving calm, a belief in predestiny that is frightening in its lack of intensity.

It's the fault of generations of dour immigrants—the sort of people who drained a swamp in order to spend the next thousand years battling land with the consistency of fudge on eerily geometric farms. What would cause men (and their stolid, house-shaped wives, daughters, sisters) to commit themselves to such a place?

This stubborn connection to fields that stretch to gray-green horizons also breeds a certain discomfort with any geography containing actual hills, valleys, curves. The looseness of mountains, the green of forests is somehow obscene. They are uneasy beyond their element, and even those who spend decades elsewhere feel a combination of mental comfort and social strain when coming home again.

So part of this resignation disguised as stoicism comes from the land itself. A friend told me once (will tell me soon, again, perhaps) that there's always money in land. He'll be right. Lesson four.

Another bit (tied again to those Pythagorean farms) comes from the weather.

The winds are schizophrenic, delusional, suddenly deciding that spring has arrived in January; the Ides of March can birth six inches of snow in one night. A sunny afternoon turns to thunder without warning, to tornado in a blink. We do not plan around weather—-we plan because of it.

So geography is stable, dry, simple, and nature (time) is not. Is it any wonder that the ones who need excitement flee screaming, while those who crave stability are attached by elastic bonds that always, always snap them back to the rows of crops and highways that fade to horizon?

***

And so you went on a journey, and you never looked back. Lot's wife, Orpheus, Indiana Jones. They all teach you the same lessons. A journey begun is an irrevocable choice. To look back is death, and so forward it must be.

Lesson five.

***

I find myself here. Wherever I am. Where am I, again? A strange city, a new place, with streets that look the same but people unfamiliar. Does it need a name, or can it be an archetype? Let us all agree that it is In Between and not the Destination.

And that I am a stranger in town. Sitting here, getting my bearings, and listening to the locals go on about their day. Wondering whether I ought to be on a quest. Searching for a place that doesn't exist, a man who is alone, a man who is gone, a girl who is something new.

Waiting quietly, being useful, pretending to be who (what) I am not.

The first attempt:

"It's hard to be a white rapper. But I'm sure that's the first time that the sentence "William James was pretty fly for a white guy" has ever been uttered in polite conversation. Or any conversation, really."

"It doesn't come up that often."

Now describe the speakers. What are they wearing? How old are they? How old do they look? Does she raise her eyebrow when she replies, or would the irony be lost on her companion? How did she learn about William James?

Has she met him? Yet?

The second:

"You know, my life would be so much easier if people would just figure out what I want them to do and do it. Really, everyone's would."

"Why are you calling me an idiot?"

"You know, if you have to ask, I probably can't explain it to you."

These are different people. New characters. Or the same ones, three months earlier. It depends on how long I've been sitting and listening, doesn't it? And how I feel about time?

Ask yourself if the context matters. Tell yourself that sometimes the words are enough. Try not to think too hard about blonde hair, leather jackets, or whether you'll ever get to buy him that drink. What he looks like now.

Look away and blink. Remind yourself that you were left behind. That you are on your own. That they are not yours. Never were.

This is the kind of man I am.

The last:

"Seven guys walked by in monkey suits, and the guy dressed as the angel of death fell down the stairs, ass over teakettle. It's just been one of those weeks."

And now it's time to step back into the whirl of time and events and things that you wish you'd known before. These are people who make sense. People who take the impossible in stride. She was less than permanent, it seems.

Just smile. In the end, that's all that charm is. Lesson six.

A smile, and the willingness to back it up. The universe has a sense of humor. Lesson seven.

***

You've haven't lost your charm. You've lost memories, you've lost family, you've lost a world and a life (how many lives?) and your own identity, for a while. But the story remains. A journey begins, and a stranger (a friend, a lover) arrives. Comes home.


End file.
